


The Deluded Architect

by Devilinthebox (princegrisejoie)



Series: Reincarnation Verse [1]
Category: Death Note
Genre: Alternate Universe - Inception Fusion, Alternate Universe - Reincarnation, Falling In Love, Fate & Destiny, Inspired by a Movie, M/M, Missing Persons, Mission Fic
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-11-06
Updated: 2015-11-06
Packaged: 2018-04-30 08:28:48
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,582
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/5157008
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/princegrisejoie/pseuds/Devilinthebox
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>[Reincarnation AU - Part I] "The first story comes with a strange reminiscence. It’s a life similar to the scenario of a film, an intricate tale of lingering dreams and a love betrayed. They made the story their own." Or: Light as an architect and L as an extractor.</p>
            </blockquote>





	The Deluded Architect

**Author's Note:**

> Sooo, a long time ago an anon asked me on tumblr whether I could write a Cloud Atlas or a Reincarnation AU. This qualifies, I think, as a Reincarnation AU with themes borrowed from the book. For instance, in each of the AUs, there is a hint to another universe L and Light lived into. The first one is an Inception AU with a prologue, and here it is. (you can also [read it on tumblr](http://capitaineblackbird.tumblr.com/post/125772322826/the-theory-of-reincarnation-13))  
> Each AU is meant to explore one aspect of their relationship. Part I is one of the worst case scenarios, where they give in to their respective weaknesses.

_‘You are my ghost, a half-remembered dream, and an enemy like I never dared imagine. I got you to challenge, entrance, confront me…you who is reading this…the brightest light I have ever known. We have unfinished business, you and me. I’ll be waiting.’_  
[The first page of Lawrence Lawliet’s journal on the Reincarnation Theory]  
  
XxX  
  
It is L’s personal belief that they have not been reincarnated. The year is 2015, and they have memories of other times where they met, but none of them was in the same space. L has been a detective, an extractor of dreams, a ghost and a magician. In each of these lives, he had found and known Light as the sweet, polite trickster he always was.  
  
Were they the same human beings, in different bodies, in different worlds? Impossible. That defied the laws of logic, physics and humanity all at once.  
  
We humans take pride in our uniqueness. We can’t be multiple. We shouldn’t be recreated. And we are one. Irreplaceable.  
  
All these identities were true at some point, false at another. This is not reincarnation. If anything, they are immortal, with souls that cross the borders of universes. Maybe, detective Light Yagami says in the warmth of his lover’s neck, this is why they feel clandestine everywhere. 

  
They are not reincarnated, for they are never quite the same. In one precise universe, Light Yagami proves to be courageous enough to seek the truth. Or perhaps, he is luckier than the other young men called Light Yagami.  
  
He knows L investigated their other lives. He knows L, he calls him Laurie at times when he wants something from him. And _Laurie_ gives up more often than he likes to admit. That much is an advantage this Light Yagami has on his alter-egos.  
  
L is exactly the sort of man who hides treasures in the attic. He has a taste for clichés, and knows the best hiding place are the ones everyone would avoid.

So the attic it is. The first place Light seeks the diary into. The moment he finds the object, Light’s first instinct is to rein in his tears. This is the work of L’s existence – it counts more than the investigations, and all the atrocious crimes that keep him awake. It’s a curse and a blessing to be self-aware. But Light has no time for crying over L’s unfinished work.  
  
“You won’t be mad at me,” Light says for himself. “Or you would have hidden it somewhere else, Laurie.” He did not mean to utter his name like a mockery.  


* * *

  
  
_First story: His hand trembled all the way through Inception._  
  
The first story comes with a strange reminiscence. It’s a life similar to the scenario of a film, an intricate tale of lingering dreams and a love betrayed. They made the story their own.  
  
“This time,” L wrote in that spidery handwriting of his, “time fell down on us. We could not control it, and I think we failed to save each other. Quite pathetic, if you ask me, that our minds never found a way out of this.”  
  
Light Yagami was an architecture student with a propensity for unrealistic, otherworldly plans. His buildings were works of art, so beautiful and ambitious they could not sustain the boundaries of reality. That led him to hate his imagination, develop a sense of superiority to compensate, and to spend afternoons sharing dreams.This was a brand new technology – Dream Sharing. Lucid dreaming, with only a little dose of a drug called Somnacin. A miracle, really. Some used it for illegal ends, but that did not concern Light. All he wanted was to build his own world. In artificial dreams, all is possible and you get to remember it. You get control, you get power over the unreal.  
  
There was many ways to benefit from it. Unravel deep buried secrets? Plant strange ideas in the mind of their enemies? Light could see the attraction of it. To his great despair, he could understand most criminal urges. That scared him, so he turned his head from the temptation and built and built and built the palaces of his fantasies.  
  
He stopped time for himself. They had warned him, at the dream sharing facility: “Do not put yourself to sleep more than two hours a day. Time flows differently in here – you can’t spend weeks in a dream. You will forget reality.” It did not ring as something worth remembering. Light ignored it.  
  
If they wished to frighten him, they should never have said that. _You will forget reality_? They might as well have said all his wishes will come true.  
  
“I am a client. I pay to dream. I believe your warnings are misplaced,” Light snapped once. “Isn’t this unfair enough that I have to pay to live in a decent world?”  
  
He extended his stay in the cities he wanted to erect, the very places reality condemned not to exist. Somnacin soon proved too weak for Light. In his mind, a terrible truth lingered: his creations were lies he dreamed. He needed to eliminate that thought. He needed a stronger drug, if we were to use words less kind. It was that, though: a drug. He hid it well enough so his parents would not guess he was poisoning himself. He was too absent from the house, always studying. The mood swings and the signs of addiction, they missed it all. Light did everything in his power to keep them ignorant. Cleverness is fatal as any weapon, for those who wield it against themselves. You can destroy yourself without anyone knowing. You only need intelligence, and a mind that acts as your own enemy. Light Yagami qualified easily.  
  
Chemistry was not his forte and he did not want to die so soon. He did not want to die at all, as a matter of fact, which is why he fell in love with architecture in the first place… Regardless, he had to find someone to invent that drug for him.  He got lucky.  
  
The internet, however, was his forte. They said the internet was forever. In the real world, it was the place most appropriate for someone who refuses the idea of finality. He found a deranged man who called himself Ryûk, checked his references, decided he was perfect for the job. The drug coursed through his veins so often and so deeply and so perfectly. It fitted in his body like blood. How could he resist?  
  
If he had to pinpoint the moment usage became abuse, he’d chose the fateful day he put himself to sleep not in a public facility but in his own childhood room.He had tried to fight the urge, to think of the risks. What if his lawful father discovered his son used a drug? What if his sweet mother learnt he hated the real world, how intensely he despised it? What terrifying perspective, what a mess that would be. Even he wouldn’t be able to clean this up.  
  
It changed after Soichirô Yagami began investigating Somnacin traffic.  
  
“This has to stop,” he told his family at dinner. “There are too many fragile people involved. They have no idea what they are doing.”  
  
Of course, Light Yagami had to approve. He didn’t even have to force his smile.  
  
“This is an excellent initiative, Dad. I hope I can help with the investigation like the other times.” They all believed him. That was almost as intoxicating a feeling as willing a replica of the Tower of Babel to existence. He did that every night. Being believed was the closest catharsis he could find for the hours he had to spend in the real world.  
  
“Do you think they’re all weak for using it then, Dad?”  
  
Sayu’s remark dispersed the perfect, controlled smile on Light’s face.  
  
“I think they are people who lost their way.” Soichirô Yagami sounded pained, though he did not know his son had lost his way too. That sort of things doesn’t happen in normal families, Light thought. Soichirô Yagami deemed the users of Somnacin lost souls, then. Lost souls in need of a saviour. Alone in his room with the impeccably arranged furniture, Light could have cried, but he laughed instead.  
  
The fear of being caught turned into the selfish desire to be seen, discovered, and at last, captured. He hoped someone would open that door without asking for his permission. He wished someone would wake him up. He yearned to be stopped.He took too many doses of modified Somnacin that night. It lulled him. It took his hand and lead him to sleep. And to never wake again.  
  
XxX  
  
An old man that seemed like some retired MI6 agent opened the door to Sayu Yagami. She gave a polite smile, feeling slightly uneasy in his presence. He gave off an air of quiet elegance that did not soothe her fears. Lawliet claimed the man was the family butler, but she was a fan of Batman and did not underestimate family butlers at all.  
  
After the so-called butler handed Sayu a cup of green, bitter tea, Lawliet motioned his young client to sit on the couch beside him. He did not even rise up to greet her and barely looked away from the documents he was studying before her arrival. That was to be expected from the man, so Sayu didn’t flinch. She had more pressing matters than arguing over the value of politeness. She wasn’t even sure she wanted to defend these beliefs anymore.  
  
“I am Sayu Yagami,” she said, doing her best to look at the man in the eye. His hair was a dark and curly mess. He looked neat otherwise. At least, on the exterior.  
  
“My brother has been in a coma for six years…”  
  
“There is no need for introductions,” Lawliet cut her off, “Tell me why you came.”  
  
“My parents are waiting for decisive evidence, but I know it,” Sayu said after clearing her throat. “He took… Somnacin, or something similar. I’m certain of that. Light hid so well, we never knew who he really was until now.” She paused, looked for the right words. “I have done my part: I waited. Six years. He won’t wake up on his own,” she stated calmly and with no detours.  
  
Sayu Yagami did not share her brother’s taste for escapism. As terrible as it was to think Light discarded his family in favour of his unreal creations, she had no right to deviate from the facts.  
  
“I am loyal to my brother. My father is silent about it all, and a part of him considers that Light betrayed us. And my mother…she is lying to herself. I need to intervene. It’s my duty, as a sister and a daughter. If someone can help me, it’s going to be you. The best extractor to find the best dreamer.” She kept the sorrow from her voice, lest an emotional outburst cost her Lawliet’s help.  
  
He was her last chance – the best extractor in the world, someone who travels through dreams, gathers secrets, and sells them with no remorse whatsoever. To the Yagami family, this illegal, hideous business was despicable. But even despicable people can be talented, Sayu Yagami knew. Talent was the only requisite. Anyone skilled would do, to bring Light back from his nightmares.  
  
Dreams experts claimed limbo is your subconscious stretched to infinity. She did not want to imagine Light trapped in his subconscious. That sounded terrifying.  
  
She didn’t tell Lawliet everything, just what he needed to know. After she was done, he finally disposed of his paperwork and fixed his eyes, mad piercing eyes, on her.  
  
 “I studied your brother,” he replied in a voice that sent shivers down Sayu’s spine. “I gathered intelligence on him, all I could find. I got interested in his…situation. This is rather unique, such a young man, skilled enough to recruit a chemist and persuade him to make his own version of Somnacin. Most of them wouldn’t agree. Too much risks. Your brother must have found the right words.”  
  
He studied Sayu in silence for a second before going on, in his ever calm voice. It was hard to determine whether he was acting a part or not. It reminded Sayu of Light, though in her souvenirs, Light never seemed so bizarre in his attitude. He was more careful, that’s all, Sayu thought, or maybe he was ashamed of who he was and decided to be the person praised the most. _Brother, you were a prodigy, a lying prodigy._  
  
Her expression must have changed then; Lawliet flashed an involuntary smile. Sayu missed her chance to read it, she never knew what it meant. She hoped it was compassion. “He was determined to this,” Lawliet said - deadpan, too much so. It occurred to Sayu he might have taken a very special interest in Light’s case already. She breathed more easily, knowing Lawliet would not let her down.  
  
“Since he wasn’t a fool, our little prodigy, and knew the consequences of what he was about to do, I can only conclude he was desperate to escape reality. To escape all of us, this world…his own family.” Sayu swallowed nervously at that. She recalled how Light looked – so controlled, so brilliant all the time. He never seemed quite alive, not in the regular sense. She felt a headache coming on. _He seemed dead before his age._ That meant nothing at all, so she focused on Lawliet again.  
  
“This is why I have to tell you this: some people cannot be saved. He may well be one of them. He lost himself in dreams. Maybe he is better there. No one ever came back from limbo, after all. Are you aware of this?”  
  
She nodded feebly, cursed her sudden lack of courage. Lawliet observed her in silence again, turned his back and threated to the other side of the room, where all the dream sharing instruments were. “He might not want to come back to reality. You see, his reality now…” He gestured toward the machine. “Is this.” It seemed alive, that object, with its haunting and repetitive moan. It reminded Sayu of the falsity of it all. That was not dreaming. It was an escape, a machine that annihilated reality for those who feared it. It did not put them to sleep, it plunged them into a long, gripping coma that replaced reality in their hearts and minds.  
  
To the sad sister of a dreamer, this machine was a weapon. Nothing more. Nothing less.  
  
“That may be the best place for him,” Lawliet reiterated. “A place where all his dreams come true. You know, he is probably more at peace with his subconscious in there than he will ever be in our cruel little world. Why would you save him from the choice he made? That could be cruel.”  
  
Sayu felt a bitter taste in her mouth. Lawliet was teasing her, testing her. It was all too natural for him; it showed in the nonchalant way his fingertips skimmed the surface of that dreadful machine. It showed in his tone, in the distance he played so well just to unsettle her. It was hard to believe he had never known Light. That slight mockery sparkled all the anger she never permitted for herself. Anger did not have a place in her home, it was a misstep her parents refused. Anger was one of the stages of grief, and there was no one to grieve for at the Yagamis. Right?  
  
Sayu jerked up to her feet and strode to face the extractor. She had to lift her head so their eyes would meet.  
  
“I am _not_ cruel for helping my brother. I remember him. I remember how he was – but I couldn’t say who he was. The world was for him a place he could only brave if no one ever saw him as the person he was. He even hid from me, most of the time. But he could be sincere.”  
  
She averted her eyes in remembrance of Light’s smile, and in something of a sigh: “Isn’t this evidence enough that he needs our help? Don’t you want to use your talent for the greater good?”  
  
“This is not exactly my line of work,” Lawliet replied coldly. She could see he was shaken. He wasn’t hiding from her anymore. It seemed that lying was never Lawliet’s specialty after all. “I know some people are better left alone in their own wicked minds. Salvation isn’t for all of us, and certainly not for those who reject it. Don’t you think?”  
  
“As far as I’m concerned, everyone can be saved, sir. You only need good will.”  
  
Sayu never knew why Lawliet had his mysterious butler call her back three days later. Her guess was that he always intended to accept her offer. He was one strange bird, but there was no trace of cruelty in his demeanor and it was all that truly mattered.  
  
Lawliet had his own personal reasons to save Light Yagami – the temptation of heroism, maybe. Curiosity or fascination for someone as extreme as himself. Well. Either way, it worked with her.  
  
xXx  
  
“You will not die. Dreams are like that – if you die, you just wake up. You know this. So please, let it go. I can handle the rest.”The team Lawliet had assembled would soon be short of its last member. Mihael Keehl offered one last of his wild smiles to his mentor and closed his eyes. He was reluctant, even then. They did not expect Light Yagami’s subconscious to be trained and armed. The chase led them all to wake up, and before a wound inflicted by her brother’s mind forced Sayu Yagami back to reality, she made Lawliet promise he would open his eyes together with Light. “It’s my pride at stake. I get the work done no matter the means I need to employ,” he told her. He did not mention the feeling haunting his mind, the certitude he was meant to bring Light back, that only he could do it. It was nonsense, a folly.  
  
It was a secret, unfit to be voiced, beyond rationality and it belonged to them - him and Light Yagami.Lawliet injected himself the last dose of sleeping drug – a unique compound with a base of Somnacin. It was stronger and more dangerous and just what was needed to travel to the limbo. He thought of Sayu Yagami, the promise he made. Shame was surging through him, a pain worse than the fever of falling forcefully asleep. It was supposed to be a painless process; Lawliet always disagreed on that.  
  
 He had been in limbo once and left nothing behind him. He recalled a place of desolation and raw, hideous subconscious he braved if only for his pride. The journey had given him too many reasons to hate himself. He expected Light Yagami’s subconscious to ease his own self-hatred. The glimpse he got of this savage, ravaged mind had left him with a couple of wounds and the certitude there existed someone as insatiable as him. Light was one strangely refined beast, is all.  
  
He found him on the last floor of a tower made of glass. A mad beauty that couldn’t exist in reality.  
  
“The lost boy,” Lawliet announced to Yagami’s back. “Come on home now.” “This is where I feel at home,” responded Yagami, and he turned around. He was marvelous sight, with bright eyes full of unsaid truths he jealously kept for himself. The violent urge to crack his skull and uncover his secrets stirred in Lawliet’s stomach. He took a few steps towards the balcony.    
  
“You are lost, Light Yagami. Do you not see it? Your sister hired me to find you. Your sister! Don’t you see how far we have come for you?”Yagami did not seem to believe him. It was no use. His subconscious surely provided him with a carbon copy of his sweet sister. It’s the mind’s mission, after all – healing wounds, filling the gaps left by the ones we deserted.  
  
“Lawliet, is it? I knew we would meet. I don’t know how. I can’t understand how, but I knew someone would descend here, and try to reach for me. I was always certain it would be you.”  
  
A gentle, honeyed afternoon light danced across the room. Light fitted perfectly here, with behind him, a landscape beautiful as a painting. Lawliet fought his desire to linger. The sky was turning pink – how was Yagami controlling everything with such disconcerting ease?  
  
“What do you mean, you know me?” he managed, nervous.  
  
“Oh, I don’t know you exactly.” Light had the most polished smile, but it was in his eyes that Lawliet read what he needed to understand him. “Luckily, I don’t know anyone like you. You are an egoist and a thief, that much I learnt about you. I considered calling you for my special brand of Somnacin. As it happens, I renounced. I felt you would refuse and cause me trouble. Apparently, I was quite right.”  
  
“I am not asking you to appreciate me, Yagami.” It was all Lawliet could answer. Dazed and bewildered, he needed time to regain control over the events. Improvisation was the least of his talents, and somehow Yagami sensed that.  
  
An airy, cadenced walk carried Yagami over to Lawliet, “When I used to dream…to have normal dreams I couldn’t control – you were a character in my dreams.”  
  
“A character?” Offense rang clear in Lawliet’s voice. “I am a real person. I have been paid to find you. Cut the fairytale talk, please.”  
  
Light Yagami stepped even closer. In the world he crafted, even his steps resonated as he pleased. “You’re not doing this for the money, are you?” he asked, with less delicacy than before. “I know this. I am sure of your intentions. You see, it’s not just a sentiment I have, Lawliet. It’s not some kind of irrational feeling. I am in control of you. This is my world, and I know you. What could happen to me? Tell me, I beg of you. Please do tell me, what can you do? How will you threaten me?”  
  
He sounded awfully confident, all of a sudden. Miraculously Lawliet resisted the urge to slap him.  
  
“Stop that pathetic bluff. You don’t know me,” he said instead. “No one knows about me. You might know the business man, Yagami. I invest my fortune wisely. The newspapers talk about it.”  
  
Mr Wammy had taught him to hide behind that façade – no one looks for an outlaw in a businessman. Everyone believes a shareholder is a criminal in a fancy suit, not a thief who rips secrets off people’s minds. Even a prodigy like Yagami couldn’t have seen through that act. It was too real, too classic. He had shown a glimpse of himself to Sayu Yagami. Her devotion was worth that reward.  
  
“I don’t know you,” Yagami insisted, so self-assured in his disillusion. “I have studied you.”  
  
“Ever flattered to have stalkers. Though mine never looked nearly as handsome as yourself. How exactly did you manage to…study my character?”  
  
“As I said, you were often in my dreams.” Light gave the ghost of a smile, and in a slight gesture of the hand created a staircase, crooked and translucent, that he began to climb easily. He stopped mid-way, upon realising Lawliet wasn’t following him.  
  
“Don’t you want to visit limbo with me? See how I mastered it all. You won’t leave a mystery unsolved, will you?” Light was inviting him to an exclusive tour in his mind, that fortress of mad ideas, his own worst enemy. Who would refuse such a trip?  
  
“Follow me, would you?” Yagami insisted. Lawliet obliged, of course. He took a step.  
  
Yagami’s hand moved, cobra-like, unforeseeable. The next second, Lawliet’s gun was in his possession.  
  
“Why this? Why come armed to rescue my, oh, so poor soul?” Bitterness soured his tone. It was satisfying to see him like this. Lawliet felt privileged.  
  
“You need to wake up,” he said, unflinching, though Yagami was clasping the weapon now. “It’s the only way.” A beat. Outside, the landscape and the tower buildings and the whole world seemed alive. It moved along with Yagami’s mood. Fascinating. Yagami had his eyes fixed on the weapon in his hand.  
  
“Will you shoot me?” The words had escaped Lawliet.  
  
To his surprise, Yagami replied on the spot. “For me to kill you, I need to hate you.” He raised his eyes, so expressive. “I don’t. Really, I don’t. You came all the way to meet me. I am relieved to see you at last. In the flesh. Doesn’t your rational, genius mind see this? I have no reason to hate you. So you see, I won’t use this, ever. I’m happy and alive here. If you kill me, well. You’re the villain of the story.” He tossed the gun away, out of reach, and took Lawliet’s hand.    
  
“Stay with me for a bit. Escape the world. Nothing is definitive, you can still come back one day, to the world you were born in. We still have the gun. It will wait for you, you wouldn’t even have aged much…still a young man. Conversely, if you leave me now, you’ll never fall into the limbo again. You’d see it as a defeat, and you’re too childish, too prideful to permit it. So, choose to stay now. I’m only saying what you know. The world is not for you. You know this in your marrow.”  
  
Amidst Yagami’s carefully weaved web of lies, Lawliet distinguished one crucial truth – he knew something in his marrow. It wasn’t anything Yagami had told. It defied logic and the dubious moral code Lawliet had built for himself.  
  
_I want him with me._ He cursed internally and squeezed the cold, cold hand he was offered.“What did the ghost say in your dreams? You know…me, the ghost you met.”Light cocked his head. “He said we had already met. Some version of us, at least. Somewhere. We met and met again, and we always miss each other because of our misplaced pride.”  
  
“It was me alright. Yes. I can believe that.”  
  
The happy ending was tainted by their ambitions. Sayu Yagami, in all her good will, offered her brother an excuse to linger deeper in unreality. He had a partner now. Someone to impress. Someone to please.They created a world that revolved around them, and Lawliet convinced himself it was better that way, it was better than imposing themselves to the universe. 

To think Sayu Yagami had put her faith in him…

He was but a cruel, immature man. And Yagami was too eager to find someone to relate to - he would never say otherwise.  


* * *

  
  
This is the first story and it ends like this. Though, I can’t pick one to be first. Why that one, is this a privilege?

It seems I was an optimist then – worst case scenario is the one I get rid of first.  
  
Trapped in unreality! Light, I can write this for you: I really don’t want to believe this could happen to me. The Lawliet in this universe probably ended up shooting "his" Light the instant he felt himself losing track of reality. Oh God.  
  
That resembles the worst side of us. (Though you’d be a fabulous architect)


End file.
